


If I Cannot Touch Your Heart

by kayura_sanada



Category: Dragon Age II, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Angst, But It Takes Place After A Potential DA4 Ending, Character Death, Confrontations, Death, Depressing, Despair, Dragon Age: Inquisition Spoilers, Emotional Hurt, Emotional Whump, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Murder, Obviously Not Actually DA4 Compliant, Post-Dragon Age 4, Post-Dragon Age: Inquisition - Trespasser DLC, Sad Ending, Signs of Depression, Sorrow, Suicide By Another, Whump, no happy ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-07
Updated: 2020-04-07
Packaged: 2021-03-02 04:47:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,168
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23529385
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kayura_sanada/pseuds/kayura_sanada
Summary: After Fen’Harel successfully tears down the Veil, Fenris goes to confront the man who destroyed his world.Fulfills the 'Confrontation' space on my Bad Things Happen bingo card.
Relationships: Fen'Harel | Solas/Male Lavellan, Fen'Harel | Solas/Male Mage Lavellan, Fenris/Male Hawke
Comments: 2
Kudos: 34
Collections: Bad Things Happen Bingo





	If I Cannot Touch Your Heart

Finally. Fenris found him.

Far before him, past the fallen treeline within the center of the razed plain, a platform of rock and earth and odd, filigreed metal sat, sparkling like the light of this new world. Upon that knelt the elf he’d been searching for.

Fenris pulled his greatsword from his back and stormed forward. His limbs trembled slightly, reminding him of his weariness. The weakness in his knees made picking his way through the corpses of those who had made their last stand here difficult, especially where several piled up against the edges of the elf’s makeshift dais as if some invisible wall had halted them in their tracks.

Around him, the air swirled as if caught in a miniature vortex, spinning inward toward the dais. Fenris’ eyes, still adjusting to the brightness of this newly saturated world, caught on the glint of the elf’s golden armor. As ostentatious as his ambitions had been. Fenris gritted his teeth. The sunlight bouncing in tiny rainbows off that golden metal outshone even Fenris’ markings, permanently activated ever since that bastard tore down the Veil and rent Fenris’ world asunder.

With his bright blue marks, so similar in color to Azzan’s old aura, no one with even the slightest awareness of their surroundings would have been surprised by his approach. Strange, then, that as he arrived at the edge of the makeshift platform of the great elven god, he received not even the slightest indication that the god had noticed him.

This close, Fenris could see the god in all his auspicious glory. Bald, short, thin. Mortal. Hunched over a figure held within the god’s arms, cradled to his chest. Blood stained the figure’s chest and the torn cloth covering it. Magic roiled around the god and the still form in his hands in flickers of golden rainbow light. The scene reminded him so vividly of the events of just over four days ago that he found himself momentarily frozen, reliving the nightmare. His breath hissed through his teeth. It finally got a reaction from the god; he, too, sucked in a breath. Fenris stepped onto the dais and received only the lifting of the god’s head as a response. He didn’t look surprised, or angry, or triumphant. He merely looked tired.

“Fen’Harel.”

Fenris’ hands clenched tight around the grip of his sword. The Blade of Mercy. This man. Finally, he had this man in front of him. Four straight days of travel with no rest, following the trail of the last remnants of the Inquisition, chasing down every last lead he could. Not sleeping. Barely eating. Only living for this moment. This moment where he could finally have his revenge.

Instead of standing to face him, Fen’Harel merely held the fallen form closer. Blond hair spilled over his arm, just enough to show the edge of one long, pointed ear. An elf. “If you have come to stop me, you are far too late.”

Fenris bared his teeth. The words were wounds he could barely endure. When the Inquisition had come to him in Tevinter, he had named his own cause as too important to abandon for the Inquisitor’s own. Now look at him. Because of that decision, he had lost everything.

“I’m here to make up for that mistake.”

Fen’Harel stared at him for a long, long moment. Slowly, he lowered the burden in his arms and stood.

It was as he lay the body on the dais before him that Fenris recognized the definitive hairstyle of the Inquisitor. The side of his head where the hair had been cropped to the skin showed the long, jagged mark of the old scar that traveled up his brow. Fenris snarled. So the Inquisitor had made it all the way here, to the foot of Fen’Harel. He had come to stop the menace of the false god. And this had been his payment. Death at the hands of this _beast_.

Fenris hadn’t hated someone like this since Danarius.

He waited a moment, tense, awaiting a grand speech, or perhaps some magical attack. Unlike with the magisters he’d taken down these past years, Fen’Harel did nothing. He merely watched him.

Fine.

The dais was small enough that to step forward meant to get immediately within range. The wind swirling around the empty battlefield picked up here as if coming to a point. Fenris tested his balance, but even with legs exhausted from travel, he found he could maintain his balance perfectly well. He raised his sword. The god did nothing to defend himself.

Why? Fenris had chased this man down, only to learn the god still knelt in the middle of the final battlefield. Unmoving, a constant vigil, even after victory. Nearly five days since the end of the battle. Nearly five days since his marks had burst to life in a blaze of blue fire. Did this supposed ‘god’ not defend himself because he considered Fenris too weak to be worth his time? Or did he not act because, now that he’d won, now that he’d achieved everything he’d wanted, he no longer cared?

He swung.

Fen’Harel blocked it with the wave of a single hand. He grimaced, looking angry with his own actions even as he shoved Fenris’ sword away. The force nearly sent Fenris backward off the dais. He righted himself, ignoring the twinge in his back and his legs. “You’re weak.” Fenris opened his mouth to retort, but the god beat him to it. “Why did you come to me in this state? You could not hope to defeat me.”

Fenris bristled. He wasn’t thinking about it. He’d not let himself. All that mattered was getting here and facing the man who had stolen his life from him. He swung again, furious when that magical shield slammed up again, this time bouncing him away without the god so much as moving a single muscle. He snarled. “You didn’t do this for elves,” he snarled, wanting to hurt, even if it wasn’t with his blade. “You didn’t care about us at all.”

The words did what his advance could not. The god acted as if Fenris had slapped him. “I,” the god said, his voice suddenly raw, “sacrificed _everything_ for the elves.”

“The hell you did!” Fenris swung again, this time prepared for the shield. When the god caught his sword, Fenris plunged his hand inside Fen’Harel’s chest. The god’s eyes widened. “You _never_ cared about those of us who were a part of this world. Only those who had come before us. Immortals like _you_ , who sneered at our lives in disdain, calling them worthless because they were short.”

Fen’Harel’s magic burst into a brighter flame, so golden it burned Fenris’ eyes. The god’s brown eyes glowed a sudden blue, as bright as Fenris’ markings. The hold Fenris had on the god’s heart slipped away as the god took a single step back and to the side. Fenris couldn’t help but notice that he stayed as close to the Inquisitor’s head as possible. Fenris chased after him, even though his hands slid through the god’s body as if moving through air. “You cared only about your own comfort. Not ours!”

“You have no idea what I cared for or what I wished.”

“ _You_ had no idea what _we_ wished for!” Fenris chased after the man, splitting him from the corpse of the man who had done what Fenris had not. If he had been here, he thought, and felt the black, empty space within him fill once more with despair – if he had _been here_ , would things have been different? Would he have been able to save his world? “You never asked us what we wanted. Whether we would be willing to lose the lives of those we loved simply to reclaim some lost buildings! Some lost sky!”

“Hold.” Fen’Harel’s spell ended, but he did not cede his ground. Instead he held out one hand and pushed with those glowing eyes. Fenris felt his feet stiffen. He looked down. His feet were turning to stone. The god’s eyes traced the light marking Fenris’ body. “Your skin…”

No! Not yet. Not until he got his vengeance.

He forced himself to move again. The golden magic burned around him again. It was instinct to worry about the limits of the mage’s mana, to know that they had reached those limits. The instinct made that empty space turn into a maw once more. “You were so busy grabbing things for _yourself_ ,” Fenris spoke again, “to make _yourself_ feel better.” He snarled and tried to ignore the pain as it bled and bled and _bled_ through him. “You never asked us what we were not willing to lose!”

“Hold still, I said.” A familiar glyph carved itself into the platform beneath their feet. The pain scored deeper at the sight. He didn’t even bother moving, knowing what that glyph entailed.

Instead of escaping, instead of attacking, Fen’Harel marched up to him, so close Fenris could feel the man’s breath, and lifted his chin. Fenris hissed at the touch, then again as he saw the gods gaze taking in his activated lyrium once more. “The moment the Veil fell, the Titans should have awoken. Your markings should have torn you apart.”

The words were daggers. Poison. He couldn’t help the animalistic sound that left his lips. “They should have,” he said. Despite himself, the tears returned. He glared at the god until they turned hot with hate. “Of all those harmed by your insanity, my Hawke was one affected the least.”

Fen’Harel’s fingers dug into his skin for a moment, so painful on his sensitive markings that Fenris thought he should have bled. “The Champion,” Fen’Harel murmured. Fenris struggled against the glyph instinctively then.

“You have no right to speak of him!”

Fen’Harel’s eyes narrowed. “He was a spirit healer. He would have helped his spirit attune itself physically to this world, as it would have him to its’.”

“Except I was not so unaffected,” Fenris said, forcing his throat to not choke up.

Fen’Harel’s eyes widened with sudden understanding. He fell silent. His hand slipped from Fenris’ skin. He backed a respectable distance away.

No amount of respect could take those moments away from Fenris’ memory. Nothing could change the memory of Azzan’s hands on his feverish skin, the man’s voice soothing as he swore it would be all right. His last words, screaming at his spirit. “Give me more! Give me everything, I don’t care! He’s dying, Faith!” And then, closer, right against his ear as he shuddered and screamed, “it’s all right, love. It will be over soon.”

Only it hadn’t been. When Fenris had woken from unconsciousness, he had opened his eyes to a world so full of dazzling light he could hardly look at it without getting a headache. He’d turned his head, ready to see Hawke laying next to him, as he always did when Fenris was recovering from something. Just as he’d thought, his lover had been prone on the dirt road they’d been walking down, his hair splayed wildly. The fact that they were not in a bed told him Hawke had fallen unconscious, as well. He had hurried up, his every muscle screaming in protest, ready to shake Hawke awake or drag him to one of their safehouses. It had taken him far too long to realize that, unlike his own, Azzan’s chest did not rise and fall. He was dead.

Dead. Using all of his magic, all of his spirit’s very life force, to save Fenris’ life.

“I am sorry,” Fen’Harel began, and Fenris gnashed his teeth and pulled so hard on the glyph’s paralysis he was actually able to move. He punched the god in the face.

“Sorry?! I never want to hear that from you!” His breath hitched so hot it was almost cold in his throat. _Sorry_ could never make up for the feeling of Hawke’s skin beneath his palm, cold to the touch. Sorry could never bring that voice or those eyes to him ever again. _Sorry_ never ceased death.

The god took the blow without a murmur. Even though only Fenris’ arm had been freed from the paralysis, the god made no move to give as good as he’d gotten. He merely wiped the side of his mouth with his thumb and backed a bit further away. He didn’t lift his head. In fact, his gaze seemed caught on something to Fenris’ side. He looked. Of course. The Inquisitor’s body.

Looking at it again, it seemed odd that the Inquisitor’s body was so perfectly preserved. If he’d been here during the battle, then he would have begun to rot, just like the other corpses lining the field. He frowned. “What is this? When did the Inquisitor arrive?” he asked, the words spilling out before he could stop them.

The god swallowed hard. “He was here when the Veil fell.”

“Bullshit,” Fenris started, then held his breath. The god still refused to leave the dais. Even now, as they battled, the god’s magic swirled around them. Around the dais itself. Outside this small space, he had felt a vortex of wind pulling him closer. Now, it was as if he stood within the tiniest breeze. He looked around again. Magic. He frowned. The god was able to simply lose his form and move away from Fenris’ touch.

A chill crept up his spine.

“Are you real?” he asked, and took a step back. The glyph beneath his feet finally dissipated. “You’re dead.”

The god’s smile was thin. Grim. “Soon.”

Soon? What did that mean? He looked around again. Golden magic. This place, this one small space, held corpses that had yet to age. To rot. He was suspending time. Either he’d suffered a grievous wound, or his mana was on dangerously low levels. Fenris’ heart twisted. He’d come for revenge against a man either dead or nearly so. He glared at the god. “What’s the point?” he snapped. Why had he come all this way, only to face someone he could not take proper vengeance against? And what… what was he supposed to do after, when there was no one left to kill and no one left to return home to? “What was the point in any of this?”

The god merely shrugged. “Perhaps you are correct. Perhaps I only did this for myself. To make myself feel like there was still a chance to make things right. Someone wise once told me we do not give up on such things. We just keep trying until we get it right.”

Fen’Harel wasn’t looking at him. He was looking at the Inquisitor. “You got it wrong,” he snarled anyway.

A short, horrible beat of silence. “I know,” the god said.

Fenris looked at the Inquisitor. His face was caught in a grimace, his brows low even in death. A sparkle of Fen’Harel’s magic swirled around the body as he watched. A small, thin line of wetness glittered on the Inquisitor’s cheek.

Fenris’ heart slammed against his ribs. He staggered back, nearly falling off the edge of the dais.

The Inquisitor had cried. Just before dying, he had wept.

Fenris’ gaze shot back up to Fen’Harel. This time, he took in the god’s slumped back, his tense shoulders, the soft, lonely, _defeated_ look on his face.

“It can’t be,” he breathed. The god looked at him for only a short moment before looking away, back toward the corpse on the ground before him.

The corpse of the god’s lover. The Inquisitor had been Fen’Harel’s Champion.

His breath caught in his throat. This time when he stepped away, his foot caught on the edge of the platform. He fell, pitched backwards, until he landed on his spine in the rotted dirt. Still, his gaze never left the spectacle before him.

This god had killed the man he loved for this farcical, colorful wasteland.

He sat up. His sword scraped against the ground until, with a jellied thump, it cut into the bloated body of one not so beloved by Fen’Harel. He wrinkled his nose at the smell and stood.

Hawke had died for this. While Hawke had given up everything, even his life, to defend Fenris, The Inquisitor had died at the hands of his own love. This god had cared less about his lover than he had about himself. “You deserve worse than this death,” he said. His words caught the god’s attention again, if nothing else. Fenris lifted his now soiled sword and pointed it at the god. “To assuage your guilt, you murdered the Inquisitor.”

The god flinched. It was the first time Fenris saw any such reaction from Fen’Harel. He smiled grimly.

“What do you have for it? This is not the only place where corpses pile high. Demons prowl our world. Countless mages have lost their minds to madness or demons. Every Tranquil has dropped dead. Humans and Qunari die in droves. Spirits roam like ghouls, haunting the halls of the dead. Half of your precious elves have gone blind, deaf, or catatonic, their bodies unable to withstand the sudden return of the Fade. You have doomed the world. And perhaps worse, you did so by stepping on the body of the man you pretend to love.”

A flash of anger, as Fen’Harel reacted to those last words. His eyes sparked blue. The wind whirled into a frenzy. Then, in the next heartbeat, it calmed again, the ineffable power of Fen’Harel’s magic calling it in to this place where time had stopped. The god’s shoulders slumped. “Perhaps you are right.”

Fenris’ vindictiveness died down yet again. He didn’t want to hear the god agree with him. He wanted to keep pummeling him, to hurt him where Fenris was hurting. So he tried again. “I have no desire to imagine what the Inquisitor was thinking. You know he came to me?” Another lift of his head, as the god gave Fenris more attention. “He asked me to join his cause. He wished to stop you.” The god just nodded. “I found it strange, however. He insisted he merely needed to turn you to another path. I told him it would be easier to do battle with you, but he refused to even hear it.”

The god sank into himself. Yes. Good.

“I truly believed he was amassing an army, yet he said that he did not believe it would come to blows.” Fenris took a pointed look around. “What must he have thought, to arrive here and find he had been wrong?”

The god’s shoulders did not move. He no longer breathed.

“Who dealt the first blow? I would be willing to bet my chance at vengeance that it was you.”

Another flinch, worse than the one before. This time, his grin was no more than a baring of teeth. He’d been right.

He stepped back onto the dais, not bothering to wait to acclimatize to the change in wind pressure. He stepped up to the god and placed his sword to the elf’s throat. “That’s the difference between a _god_ and a _man,_ I suppose,” he said, his own eyes like flinty steel. His hand gripped the handle of his blade so tight his knuckles turned white. His exhaustion was long gone. “You would kill anyone if it furthered your ambitions. And I would do _anything_ , give up _anything_ , just to have Hawke _back_.”

He’d said it once to Hawke, so many years ago now he could barely remember. _Nothing could be worse than the thought of being without you._ And now he had to live that truth. For the rest of his life, he would have to live knowing that his life was only life thanks to Hawke, that every beat of his heart was one handed from Hawke to him. That he would face this new, terrifying world alone, without his other half by his side.

He had to live knowing that Hawke had died for _nothing_. Because one selfish man had believed his answers better and more important than anyone else’s.

“I cannot bring him back,” Fen’Harel said. He faced Fenris’ blade with his chin high and hands down. No longer fighting.

“There is no point to someone like you,” Fenris snarled, trying to ignore how much he wished he hadn’t heard that. He’d held no hope, yet to have someone with the power of a god say that death was final – he never wanted to hear that. This man just kept saying things Fenris never, ever wanted to hear. “I deny you,” he said suddenly, viciously, with all the rage in his heart. It brought tears to his eyes. “I deny your judgment. Your false godhood. Your _choice_. Everything that you have done. After I kill you, I will spend the rest of my life trying to fix what you’ve broken.”

“It would take thousands of years to reach the level of power and knowledge necessary,” the god said.

There was no cynicism. No arrogance. Fen’Harel said it like it was a simple fact. Fenris felt the weight of his own despair settled in his stomach. He agreed. Fixing this would take more than anyone, any mortal, could ever hope to achieve.

That knowledge was what, after nearly five days of surviving on rage, finally made the tears fall. What did he have left? His rebel army was in tatters. Tevinter was nearly destroyed from within, as mage after mage succumbed to the horrors of this new world. The Qunari were dying too fast to continue their assault. This whole world had crumbled, turning to anarchy as leadership died or lost their minds. The workforce was decimated. And the one person who could have helped Fenris make sense of it all, who could have pointed Fenris toward a new path, a new direction. He had carried that person to the side of that road, dug a hole, and buried him in it.

He had lost _everything_. And unlike his memories, unlike his lost freedom, he would _never_ get it back.

“What you have stolen from the world,” Fenris hissed, his breath hitching, “can never be repaid.” He raised his arm back. Fen’Harel did not flinch or look away. “But this can be a good start.”

He slashed down. He half expected a parry, or a shield, or perhaps for Fen’Harel to once again become intangible. Instead his sword cut down the god’s armor, slashed into his neck and cracked open his chestplate. Blood gushed from the severed artery at his neck. He fell.

It was anticlimactic. He expected the wind to start howling, the sky to perhaps split and crack, or for the earth to rush up, or even for the bodies around him to suddenly rot. Something to show that time had been affected here, only for it to stop. He looked around for a moment, then down. He checked the god’s pulse, then cut off his head, just to be certain.

He was dead.

He looked around again. So many dead. The Inquisitor. Fen’Harel. Both of their armies, torn and twisted into balloon-like caricatures of who they’d once been. The grass. The plants. The trees. The animals. Everything here was dead. Beyond this plain, death battled with chaos for dominance. Far, far past this place, a small, shallow grave held the one man who’d meant more to him than anyone else.

Hawke had given Fenris everything. His life. His hopes. His faith. _Give me everything, I don’t care! He’s dying, Faith!_

Fenris wiped his sword clean on the cloth of one of the dead. He carried the Inquisitor’s corpse away from the man who had betrayed him and buried him at the edge of the battlefield. Then he turned back the way he had come.

His Hawke had been a healer. Fenris had never truly mastered any of Hawke’s greatest skills – his kindness, his compassion. His tenderness. His healer’s heart.

But Fenris knew how to fight. He knew, after all these years with the rebellion, how to lead. With this heart in his chest, this heartbeat fueled by Hawke’s own, he knew he would have to learn Hawke’s skills. He was living for them both now. Just for a little while, he told himself. The one good thing about this new world was that it had failed to grant the elves immortality. That would come back over time. Fenris could expect to live no more than fifty more years, sixty if he lived through old age.

It was all right. He would take it day by day, doing what he must. He would save all he could. That was what Hawke would do. That was what he, carrying Hawke’s soul, had to do. For Hawke’s sake. For his own.

“That’s all right, love,” he murmured, leaving that battlefield behind for the next one. Sixty years, at most. He took one deep, steady breath. “It will all be over soon.”


End file.
